Ten years after the Cassells Report set out the investment needed in higher education, the sector still has no long-term funding model and remains roughly €190 million short of the inflation-adjusted Cassells target, according to a report published today by the ICTU Group of Further and Higher Education Trade Unions.
The Case for Publicly Funded Higher Education 2026 updates Congress’s 2020 report and finds that the problems identified six years ago have got worse.
Enrolments reached 278,880 in 2024/25, up 57.1% since 2007/08 and the biggest annual increase since 2020/21. Staff numbers have not kept pace. Ireland’s student-staff ratio of around 19:1 is among the worst in the developed world, and reaching the OECD standard of 15:1 would require approximately 6,500 new academic posts.
Frank Jones, General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers and Chair of the ICTU Group of Further and Higher Education Trade Unions, said:
“Every Government for the past decade has accepted that higher education is underfunded, and the only argument has been over the amount. Despite this, the sector depends on researchers on rolling contracts and hourly-paid lecturers who get nothing between terms.
“Government will point to extra money in recent budgets, but of the roughly €192 million allocated across 2023 and 2024, only around €60 million went to core needs such as staffing. Once-off top-ups will not close a deficit that has been building since 2008.”
The report draws on IFUT research showing:
- 85% of researchers depend on sequential fixed-term grants.
- 61% of hourly-paid staff receive no pay during non-teaching periods.
- 66% of precarious posts are held by women.
- 8.5% of respondents waited ten years or more for a permanent contract.
Students are also under pressure, with maximum SUSI maintenance grant of €5,915 covering barely a quarter of typical Dublin accommodation costs, and a student living away from home in Dublin facing annual costs of €23,600 to €30,800.
Mr Jones added:
“Each graduate is worth around €72,000 to the Exchequer, so cutting corners on higher education costs the State money in the long run. Government must commit to a long-term funding model, a ten-year staffing plan to deliver 6,500 new posts, and the abolition of the Employment Control Framework.”
